


The Space Between Two Breaths

by FrancescaMonterone



Series: I love you, and magic is real [1]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Asexual Character, Bisexual Character, Dogs, F/F, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Friendship, Friendship/Love, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Platonic Relationships, Roxy is a child in the first part, Selkies, fairytales - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-09 14:58:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7806343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrancescaMonterone/pseuds/FrancescaMonterone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Alistair left her to face the world alone, he told her two secrets that would see her through the dark of life like guiding lights.</p><p>"There are two things you may never forget." His voice was the most sincere and earnest she had ever heard, and it etched the words into her, its blade razor-sharp. "I love you. And magic is real."</p><p>Nine-year old Roxy stared up at him, trying to match his expression. "I will remember them," she promised.</p><p>It was not an easy promise to uphold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

Before Alistair left her to face the world alone, he told her two secrets that would see her through the dark of life like guiding lights.

"There are two things you may never forget." His voice was the most sincere and earnest she had ever heard, and it etched the words into her, its blade razor-sharp. "I love you. And magic is real."

Nine-year old Roxy stared up at him, trying to match his expression. "I will remember them," she promised.

It was not an easy promise to uphold.

 

* * *

 

Roxanne Morton had been born the third child and only daughter of a prosperous Birmingham family. Her father was a lawyer, who spent more time behind the safe shelter of his pompous oak wood desk than anywhere else. He was a small man in every possible sense of the word.

Her mother was a frail English beauty, so pale that at times she seemed bloodless like the marble image of a tragically deceased virgin. Looking upon her, it was hard to imagine her anywhere outside a painting of Edward Burne-Jones; even harder to imagine that she had carried three children to term. (There was no need to speak of the four others, who had not made it that far). Her long, pale blond hair flowed in gentle waves all the way to her slender waist and her large blue eyes seemed to know only two expressions; gentle sorrow and soft astonishment at the cruelty of the world. She led a sheltered life that rarely even allowed space for her three boisterous children.

A succession of nannies had already raised Roxanne's two brothers to the ages of eleven and six, respectively, when she was born. Her mother had been ill all through the pregnancy, and there was no question of her taking care of the baby after it was born; so Roxanne passed first to a Swedish woman named Matilda, who ran the boys' nursery with the iron fist of a general from the Thirty Years' War, and later to her own nanny, a young Irishwoman named Caitlín.

Caitlín was the first to shorten Roxanne's name to Roxy, the first to watch her take a slow, careful step, and the reason Roxy's first word was the unlikely _codail_ , a verb, and a Gaelic one at that. Every evening, when Caitlín had put her to bed and tucked her in, she would tell her a story or sing her a song, and every night the last thing she said before leaving the room was _"codail go sámh", "sleep tight",_ spoken in a soft, warm voice.

Needless to say, Roxy's parents were not impressed with her choice in words; but their cold, unfamiliar embraces meant little to her.

She grew into a stout toddler, too quiet for her age; and from there into a little girl with accurately braided hair and a shy smile. Her two elder brothers ignored her for the most part. Alexander was already in his teens and had other concerns aplenty, and if Adrian took notice of her at all, it was to viciously pull her hair, steal her favorite doll, or push her out of the way.

Roxy's favorite part of the day were the walks she took with Caitlín, longer than most people would have deemed appropriate for such a small child, and rarely to places one would expect a nanny to take her charge. Caitlín took her to the park, but never to go swinging or play ball. Instead, she let Roxy run barefoot on the soft green grass, chasing after butterflies. She taught her to listen for birdsongs, and the names of the most common trees. She lifted Roxy up so she could smell roses, lilac, and honeysuckle.

Sometimes, Caitlín and Matilda took the two younger Morton children out of the city for the weekend, for a breath of clean air, as Matilda put it, or to visit their grandparents in Clevedon. Roxy never liked Clevedon. The sea scared her, loud and raucous and dangerously hungry. She heard it at night, when she lay still in her narrow bed, calling for human lives, old and deep and angry. It was not a friendly neighbor, not tamed as men in this day and age believed it to be. It gnawed at the flat, sandy beach and licked with deceptively small wavelets at Roxy's naked feet, hungry, always hungry. She had learned to swim in a clear rectangle of bright turquoise, and she was quite strong for her age, but she refused to swim in the sea. The sea, she knew, was hungry. It was waiting to eat her.

The wood, on the other hand, was her friend. It greeted her with whispering trees and soft, dark green moss. It sang to her with the voices of birds and the rustling of leaves. It smelled comfortingly of mushrooms, wet earth, and pine needles. Just as she had done in the park, Caitlín would teach her the names of all the living things that surrounded her, both in English and in Gaelic. _Giúis (fir)_ , Roxy learned, and oak, and ivy, and _cuileann (holly)._ But she learned more than their names. She learned to recognize them, their leaves and trunks, their berries and branches. She learned where to look for them, and what they did.

Holly provided protection against evil spirits, therefore it was a good plant to have in the house, not only in Christmas time. The bright red berries could bring you luck. But it was also associated with witchcraft. You had to carefully choose the bush from which you broke your branches.

The black-berried elder tasted acrid when you ate the berries raw, but when you used them in fruit pies or juice, they were good for your health. The white flowers were pretty and could be used to make syrup. You never cut down and elder tree, because it might bring the wrath of the Elder Mother upon you. If you asked her nicely, she might grant you permission to take a few branches or even the entire tree, but ask you must. If you stood in the shade of an elder tree at the right time of the year, you might see the elf-king and his host, the wild hunt, or a congregation of witches. Roxy shivered at the thought, both frightened and gripped by a strange excitement.

Foxglove was highly toxic, but also a strong medicine, if used in the right way. It was associated with fairies, and said to grow where they walked. Similarly, belladonna, the beautiful lady, was deadly to humans. Monkshood, or wolf's bane, was the queen of all poisons. Its bright blue flowers looked beguilingly innocent, but it would kill you surely and quickly. Some said it also helped to keep werewolves and vampires at bay, but Caitlín cautioned that there was no evidence for this, particularly given the fact that there was no proof either of them actually existed. "Better to keep that out of the house," she said firmly. "Try garlic, if you must. At the very least, it will be useful in the kitchen."

"Is there any plant that can let me do magic?" Roxy asked, fascinated by the stories.

Caitlín gave her a long look, as if trying to judge if the practice of magic was an appropriate topic for a conversation with a six-year old. Roxy did not look away, her bright eyes wide and unblinking. Finally, Caitlín gave a sigh. "No," she said, "some plants can _aid_ you in doing magic, and I suppose they have their own magic, as all living things do, but they cannot _let_  you do magic. Magic comes from within. If it is not within you, or if you cannot bring it out by yourself, nobody can help you. There are no magic tricks."

"But Adrian showed me one the other day!" Roxy protested. "He learned it at school."

Caitlín shook her head, her face spelling disapproval. "That was not magic. It was sleight of hand, quickness of words, and distracting gestures. It was a trick, yes, but no magic trick."

"Oh," Roxy said, somewhat disappointed. Not _very_ disappointed, mind you, because the thought of her brutish brother doing magic was somewhat off-putting.

"Is there magic inside me?" She asked.

"There is magic in all living things," Caitlín replied. "And in some others as well."

"Who put it there?" Roxy asked with a child's knack for asking important, unanswerable questions.

Caitlín shrugged. "Maybe God, if you believe in him. Maybe someone else. Maybe it has always been there."

Roxy frowned. "And the elves and fairies and witches also have magic?"

"They do," Caitlín said. "That's why they make such good stories."

"Tell me a story!" Roxy begged. She _loved_ stories.

Caitlín smiled her warm smile at her. "Very well," she said gently. "Come, sit down."

They sat on the forest floor, strewn with old leaves and small branches. It was not exactly soft, but not exactly uncomfortable either. Roxy took a deep breath, drawing in the smell of leaves, and earth, and mushrooms.

"Once upon a time, there was a young woman named Janet. She was very pretty, and she knew it well, because a great many men had already asked to marry her. But she was also proud, and had refused them all. Some of them were too tall, and others too short. Some of them were too old and others too young. Some of them were hawk-nosed, others were cold-eyed, and none of them pleased her."

"Maybe she simply didn't like men," Roxy interjected, pointing out the obvious, in a way she should not have been able to do, being a six-year old who still believe that at the end of every story, the beautiful young princess married the dashing young prince.

Caitlín gave her a wry look. "Maybe she didn't. No ordinary man, at least. One day, Janet was walking in the woods. Her father was a rich man, who owned vast lands, and Janet considered the wood she walked in to be hers, because her father had a piece of paper that said he had earned it."

"That's stupid," Roxy said, "you cannot own the wood. No more than you can own the birds, or the water, or the air."

Caitlín smiled. "Very true, but people are sometimes stupid. So Janet was walking in the woods, and beside the path, she saw a pretty rose bush. She laughed in delight and went to pluck a rose of the bush. It smelled very sweetly, and it was a beautiful color. But when she looked up, a man stood before her, his face dark and angry, asking her why she had broken a rose of his tree.

'It is not your tree,' Janet said. 'This forest belongs to my father, and so the rosebush belongs to my father.'

'You are wrong,' the man said. 'I am Tam Lin, and this forest is my realm. You have come here unasked, and you have broken a rose off my tree.'

Tam Lin, you must know, was not a man at all, but an elf, and he lived in this particular wood. He did not like it if people came there and broke off flowers or hunted deer.

He was about to get very angry with Janet, but then he noticed how lovely her face was, and how bright and blue her eyes, and how her soft golden hair gleamed like bright metal. He fell in love with her, and instead of chasing her out of the forest, he took her to the secret places, where the elves dance in the moonlight. Janet wore the rose in her hair, and she was more beautiful than any elf maiden.

But when the night was over, and the moon had gone to sleep, and bright dawn came to the forest, Janet had to go home to her father, who was waiting for her, worried. Her father was very angry with her, and shut Janet into the house, refusing to let her return to the forest to see her elvish lover. Janet's father wanted her to marry a proper young nobleman, not some elf of the woods. However, Janet refused. She snuck out of the house one night, and climbed over the garden wall. She returned to the forest, and since she had no other way of calling Tam Lin, she broke another rose of the tree.

He reappeared, and Janet greeted him tearfully. She told him of her father's wrath, and that she would have to marry a nobleman, but wanted no other than him. 'Were you ever a human?' she asked him. 'Is there any way, we might persuade my father to let me marry you?'

Tam Lin told her that he had once been a mortal man, who had fallen off his horse during a hunt and been found and captured by the Queen of Fairies. Since that day, he had been forced to ride with the Queen and her wild hunt every night of Halloween, and on other stormy nights. 'But you can free me,' he told Janet.

'Tonight is Halloween. I will ride with a company of fairy knights. You will recognize me by my white horse, and if you pull me off the white horse and hold me tightly, the Queen will have to let me go.'

But he also warned her that the Queen of Fairies would not simply give him up without a fight, and that she had powerful magic and would try to turn Tam Lin into many different animals, so that Janet would have trouble holding him.

'But I will not harm you,' he promised. 'If, however, the fairies turn me into a burning hot coal, you must throw me into a well, and I will return to being a man.'

That night, Janet hid in the shade of an elder tree, until she could hear the Queen's wild hunt approaching. There were many hoof beats, thundering along the path, and wild laughter, and strange music. There were flickering lights, and the sparkle of bright silver. The fairies wore flowers upon their brows, and cloaks of shadow and moonlight. The Queen of Fairies was most beautiful and frightening to look upon.

Finally, Janet caught sight of a white horse, and she ran out onto the path, and pulled Tam Lin's foot from the stirrup, and pulled and pulled until he fell. The wild hunt stopped, and the Queen of Fairies turned around her horse, and terrible anger burned in her eyes.

'Mortal girl', she said, and her voice was terrifying, 'you would have one of my own knights? You will not have him!"

And she turned Tam Lin into a fox. Then into a hart. Then into a deer. Then into a mouse.

But Janet held him fast all the time.

Finally, the Queen of Fairies turned her knight into a burning red piece of coal, and Janet cried out in pain, but still she held on fast, and she threw the piece of coal into a well, as Tam Lin had told her to do, and the spell was broken. From the well stepped Tam Lin, whole and mortal.

The Queen of Fairies was terribly angry, but she had to agree that Janet had won her knight fairly. She sent them on their way, and they went back to Janet's father.

'Father' Janet said, 'This is Tam Lin, and he is the man I will marry, and no other.'

And grudgingly, her father agreed, because he loved her very dearly, and he could see that she loved Tam Lin."

After hearing the story, Roxy was quiet for a moment, thinking about what she had heard. "Janet was brave," she finally acknowledged. "But why did she not stay with Tam Lin in the woods? They could have danced every night and been happy."

Caitlín smiled. "I suppose she was not that kind of girl," she said. "She had no magic of her own, except her love for Tam Lin."

 

* * *

 

Caitlín left the Morton household when Roxy began school and her father judged that Matilda was capable enough to take care of two children. Roxy begged and pleaded and cried, but to no avail. She watched Caitlín pack her bags, watched her leave the house and walk down the street to the waiting cab, and cried, and cried.

Adrian laughed at her and called her a baby.

Roxy hated him for that, even more than she had hated him before. She also hated Matilda for a while, because the woman got to stay while Caitlín had to leave, but Matilda bore her childish anger with a kind, patient stoicism that finally wore Roxy down.

School, however, was something she enjoyed. She was smarter than most of her class, and more attentive than all of them. She loved to learn, and the best thing of all was learning to read, because now she had access to all the stories she could ever hope for. She spent long hours in the school's library, reading hungrily. She read everything she could get her hands on.

She knew: there had to be a book on magic somewhere. It was only a matter of finding it.

Roxy was seven years old when she got so distracted by a book that she did not realize that she had stepped out onto the street, and did not see the car speeding towards her. She did notice, however, when someone shoved her out of the way more violently than Adrian had ever shoved her, the force of it sending her tumbling back onto the boardwalk. Her knees and hands hit the hard stone and she cried out in pain, the book forgotten.

Behind her, the car came to a screeching halt.

There were shouts of dismay, it had all happened so fast.

A shadow fell over her, and large, gentle hands lifted her up. "Roxanne Morton," an amused voice said, "congratulations, you now owe me your life."

Roxy looked up. Tears stung in her eyes because of the pain, but she recognized the oddly blank face of her cousin Alistair, son of her father's elder sister. He had the dark Morton eyes, the only remarkable thing about his otherwise perfectly plain and boring exterior.

Briefly, she considered crying, but Alistair would not have thought better of her for it, and his opinion mattered, because he gave her nice Christmas gifts, talked to her as if she was an adult, and infuriated her brothers by pointedly ignoring them at family functions. Instead, she asked: "Where did you come from?"

"I _was_ on my way to your house."

"Is she all right?" The car's driver had caught up with them and was gesturing anxiously.

"Perfectly fine", Alistair assured him. "Just a little shaken. I will take her home now."

"But school!" Roxy protested.

"You are not going to school with torn clothes and bloody knees," Alistair said firmly and started to walk from the bus stop back towards her house. He carried her effortlessly, as if she weighed no more than a few pounds, including her school bag.

"Doesn't Matilda usually take you to school?"

"She had to take Mother to the Doctor's. She's not feeling well."

"I see."

"Alistair," Roxy asked, "what do you mean by saying that I owe you my life?"

"Just that. That car would surely have killed you, if I had not pushed you out of the way."

"I didn't even see it," Roxy said, feeling embarrassed.

"I did. And that is enough. For now."

He carried her all the way up to the front door, opening it with Roxy's key, and upstairs into her room, where he sat her down onto her bed and went to the bathroom to get the first aid kit. Carefully, he examined and cleaned her scraped knees - it stung a bit, but Roxy bit her lip - prodding them to ensure that nothing was wrong aside from bruises and scratches.

"You are a lucky girl, Roxy," he said, straightening. Alistair was not a terribly tall young man, but he wasn't small either. Roxy was. She looked up at him. "You moved to fast," she said.

He looked puzzled.

"You should have been run over by the car," she clarified. "But you weren't."

"You didn't even see me," he argued.

She continued to look at him, dubious.

Alistair sighed. "Fine," he said, sounding exasperated, "supposing I did move too fast. What does that make me?"

"A superhero?" Roxy suggested, thinking of Adrian's beloved comic books.

Alistair huffed. "Try again."

"A vampire?" She suggested, thinking of a rather strange fantasy novel she had found on her mother's night desk.

That drew a short laugh from him. "No," he chuckled. "And you know that I love garlic bread."

That much was true. Besides, Caitlín had said that it wasn't even likely there really were vampires.

"A wizard...?" She asked hopefully.

"I wish," Alistair said, sounding regretful. "But no. What little magic I have is my own."

"You have magic," Roxy stated, incredulous.

Alistair shrugged. "Only a little." He held up his first two fingers, indicating a tiny quantity. "Not enough to do grand things. Enough to do _some_ little things."

"Can you teach me?" Roxy asked eagerly.

"You cannot learn magic," Alistair said, frowning. "You either have it, or you don't. It usually runs in families." He gave her a speculative look. "I get it from the Morton side. Actually, you might have some, too. Give me your hand."

Roxy reached out her left hand, palm up.

"Good," Alistair said, suddenly smiling. "The left hand is closest to the heart. Well done."

He bent closer and reached out a finger. With it, he drew something onto Roxy's open hand, a complex symbol or a pattern of sorts.

Her hand started to glow with a pale, bluish light.

"Well now," Alistair said, sounding curiously astonished, "isn't that interesting."

 

* * *

 

 

Alistair refused to tell her what was so terribly interesting about her blue-glowing hand, but since it led to him actually agreeing to teach her some magic, Roxy let the subject drop.

Only, she was not allowed to say 'teaching magic'.

"Magic cannot be taught," he maintained. "I can teach you to _use_ magic... to a certain extent."

He taught her to make milk go sour, which was not a terribly useful skill, how to turn water into wine, which was not really useful either, because it tasted sour and Roxy wanted lemonade, and how to encourage a rose to bloom. She used the last one on other flowers in the garden and the house, with varying degrees of success. The cactus was particularly stubborn in its refusal to bloom.

He taught her to light a candle without matches or a lighter. Roxy lit all the candles in the house and got scolded by Matilda for being wasteful and causing fire hazards.

He taught her to open a locked door. Over the course of the next years, Roxy used it to get into all kinds of interesting locked rooms, and all kinds of interesting situations.

Her family thought it odd that Alistair suddenly spent so much time with his little cousin, and after a while, they agreed to meet in secret, because Matilda looked at him as if she wanted to call the police on him, suspecting him of being a child molester. She probably wouldn't have been any less scandalized had she learned that Alistair was teaching Roxy how to use magic.

He _was_ an excellent teacher, though. His patience appeared to be boundless, and he never grew tired of her stumbling attempts. He also cheerfully admitted that her magic was probably ten times stronger than his own, but he did not seem jealous or upset by this.

Sometimes, they did not practice magic at all, but only talked. Roxy told Alistair about school, her brothers, and whatever else was bothering her. Alistair told Roxy about college applications, his parents' insistence that he become a lawyer or a doctor, instead of studying English literature, and whatever else was bothering him.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" Roxy asked him one day.

Alistair frowned. "Where did that come from? No." He shook his head.

Interesting. "Do you have a boyfriend?" Roxy asked, because Danielle's brother had a boyfriend and it seemed to be a legit possibility.

Alistair raised his eyebrows, but she caught the smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "Is that an appropriate question to ask?"

Roxy shrugged. "It doesn't matter, does it? I would go out with a girl, too. _If_ she was nice. Most girls are nicer than boys, though."

Her cousin laughed. "You are full of surprises, aren't you? Very well, Guinevere, since you asked: I do not have a boyfriend." It wasn't the first time he had called her _Guinevere_. They had discovered that they both loved tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Roxy had protested that she wanted to be Merlin, but Alistair had told her quite firmly that she wasn't a wizard. She had wanted to be a knight, too, but they were all men, and the only other women appeared to be the knights' wives or love interests (boring), King Arthur's mother Igraine (too old), Morgan le Fay (potentially evil), and the Lady of the Lake, and not even Roxy was that presumptuous.

"Would you like a boyfriend?" Roxy asked, mentally going through eligible bachelors in her head. Stephen from across the street was nice, and about Alistair's age. And Mr. Higgs, who taught her to ride a horse. Then, there was the friendly college student who gave Adrian extra lessons in math...

"I don't know," Alistair said.

 

* * *

 

Roxy did not find Alistair a boyfriend.

Mostly, because their lessons were cut short by him going off to college. Oxford had accepted him. His parents grit their teeth, but consoled themselves with the thought that reading English Literature in Oxford was still better than reading anything else anywhere else in the world.

After Alistair departed for college, Roxy felt terribly lonely, almost as bad as she had felt when Caitlín had left.

"Why does everyone I like leave?" she asked the empty ceiling of her bedroom.

The ceiling gave no reply.

Alistair returned for brief intervals, Christmas and holidays, and finally, summer was back and they all took a trip to Clevedon, where Alexander spent his days chasing after skirts, Adrian never came out of his room, Father spent all his time arguing with Grandma or Aunt Leslie, and Mother sat in a lawn chair, her face covered by a huge hat, trying not to get sunburned.

Alistair and Roxy took long walks along the beach. With him beside her, the sea did not seem as threatening as before, but still she could sense its hunger following her. She mentioned this to Alistair and he nodded sagely.

"The sea is not your friend," he said simply.

Roxy was inclined to agree. The sea still wanted to eat her.

Life continued at the same pace.

Roxy excelled at school and at horseback riding, took up dancing lessons, because her mother thought it an appropriate pastime for a girl her age, and read many more books. Occasionally, she wrote letters to Caitlín, and Caitlín always wrote back, sending her fairy stories.

She also wrote to Alistair, who never send her fairy stories, but told her amusing tales of his life at college.

Alexander, who was only a year younger than Alistair, finished school and somehow made it to Cambridge. (It couldn't have been on merit, if you asked Roxy.) Obviously, he went into law. He had his eyes set on their father's law firm.

At school, Roxy was asked what she wanted to become.

"A wizard," she said.

Her teacher told her that that was not an appropriate answer.

"I'll be a spy, then," Roxy said.

"How do you become a spy?" She asked Alistair at Christmas dinner.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I suppose you get recruited by MI6, or something of the sort."

It was not a very satisfying answer. Roxy turned Adrian's pudding sour in spite. It had milk in it, after all.

 

* * *

 

Her life changed again when Alistair was forcibly ripped out of it.

He disappeared from one day to another, as if he had never existed anywhere near her.

Before Alistair left her to face the world alone, he told her two secrets that would see her through the dark of life like guiding lights.

"There are two things you may never forget." His voice was the most sincere and earnest she had ever heard, and it etched the words into her, its blade razor-sharp. "I love you. And magic is real."

Nine-year old Roxy stared up at him, trying to match his expression. "I will remember them," she promised.

"Good," he said firmly, and bent down to kiss her front, his lips soft against her skin. It was an oddly formal way to kiss someone you had known since they had been born.

For the third time in her young life, Roxy had her heart broken; but this time it stuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not speak any Irish Gaelic, so what little is used in the first part of this story, I had to look up in a dictionary. I hope it is correct. If you know better, please let me know.
> 
> The Elder Mother is a character from English and Scandinavian mythology, who punishes people for cutting elder trees. Some say she is a witch. Some say she is a fairy. Maybe she is just an old lady who likes trees, who knows?
> 
> Tam Lin is at home in Scottish mythology and English ballads. He definitely is elf or fae, but he used to be a mortal man until he ran afoul of the Queen of Fairies. He is in the habit of seducing young women who pass through his wood, and one of the finally rescues him from the clutches of the Queen. They live happily ever after (or not).


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tristan looked  up at him, licking his lips. Alistair knew that look. He had been at the receiving end of Tristan's kisses twice, before firmly laying down the rule that kissing was definitely too intimate contact between two friends who shared no familial ties.
> 
> "No," Merlin told him in the firm, but somewhat exasperated way one might use when training an obstinate puppy.
> 
> In the background, Harry chuckled.

 

All great opportunities come at a price. For Alistair Morton, that price was the loss of everything he had known and cherished.

His old life was wiped away at the flicker of a hand, and he stood, watching helplessly.

Later, if he had had to offer one piece of advice to unsuspecting students who were approached at the library by a tall man in a suit, he would have told them to use their magic cloaks to hide between the shelves. Or, failing that for lack of magic cloaks, run.

The man who had recruited him called himself Richard Holbrooke. Others called him Gawain. He was a tall, elegant gentleman in his early forties, with a bit of a hawk nose and very clever eyes.

Alistair looked up to him. How could he not?

And as for the reasons of his recruitment - "You have stumbled upon a few things not many know and some of them would better stay hidden. That tells me you are clever. You have apparently not told anyone, that tells me you are able to keep a secret. Your marksmanship is excellent, you were well on your way to a title in the country-wide junior championship, before you broke your wrist at taekwondo. Which, incidentally, you also excel at. You chose a subject in defiance of your parents and against everyone's better judgment, because you feel passionate about it. Despite the fact that your grades are excellent and that you might have a stellar Academic career ahead of you, you think about becoming a teacher, because you enjoy giving back to others.  Those are some fine character traits, young man."

There was another reason, however, and Alistair learnt of it when his new mentor brought him to the manor house that would be his home for the next few months of trials and tribulations, and introduced him to a man who proudly bore a most ancient name. A name he had earned.

Merlin.

The wizard looked him up and down, face impassive, but Alistair imagined that he caught a flicker of curiosity in those dark grey eyes.

"Another Morton," Merlin said finally. He had a pleasant, resonant voice. He did not speak very loudly, but it carried to all corners of the room. "It's been a while since we had one of you in the trials." He squinted at the screen in front of him. "1972, the third Pellinore trial. Edmund Morton. He should be a cousin of your mother's."

Alistair had never met this person at any family function, but nodded nevertheless.

And yet - "How come you know my family?" Better than I do, he added silently.

Merlin gave him a small smile. "We keep track of families like yours. Families that carry a spark of magic in their bloodline. Sometimes, something extraordinary stems from those old trees, because they have deep roots that go far down into the dark ages of history."

Alistair thought of Roxy. Something extraordinary had certainly come from the Morton family in this generation, but it was not through their bloodline.

"I will test you now," Merlin said. "It is a formality, since neither of us believes that you are wizard enough to replace me, but I need to ask those question. It is something of a ritual. There are three of them. Answer them truthfully, because I will know if you are lying or hiding something. If you answer all three of them with 'yes', you will go into training as my successor. If not, you will stay in the trials for the position of Percival."

Alistair nodded his agreement.

"Do you know of magic?" Merlin asked perfectly sincere, even though the question seemed rather pointless at this time.

"Yes."

"Are you a wizard?"

"No." Alistair said, because he knew the limits of his abilities fairly well by now.

"Have you come to challenge me?"

He looked at Merlin blankly.

Merlin rolled his eyes. "Answer the question."

"No...?"

"Very well,"  Merlin said, making a note on his clipboard.

Richard - Gawain - smiled. "He will make a much better knight than a wizard."

"I am inclined to agree," Merlin said, his eyes returning to Alistair. "Still, traditions have to be observed when it comes to this. Who showed you the use of magic? Or did you come by it yourself? It is rare, but known to happen every now and again."

Alistair shook his head. "My great-aunt. My grandfather Morton's sister. She lived close to us when I was a child, and I spent a lot of time at her house. She had no children of her own, and no grandchildren, and she liked to have me around. " He remembered the old lady, looking frail and bent, but her grey-blue eyes sharp and piercing, and her mind alert. She had shown him what magic she knew, and even though he was not able to repeat all of it himself, she had seemed pleased. She had taught him to respect the flowers in her garden, and all other living things. She had taught him to play with fire, lighting candles and producing warmth, and an odd number of spells and charms. Little things, useful things.

"Women are better at magic than men, generally speaking," Merlin said. "Many seem to have an natural connection with the land and the unseen forces that move through it. It takes a rare man to surpass them. So it is good to have a woman as a teacher, and particularly one who has lived a long life and seen many things." He looked back onto the screen. "There is only one girl in your generation of Mortons. Such a shame."

 _There is **no** girl in my generation of Mortons, _ Alistair thought, but he kept it to himself. He didn't think that "I am worried, because I left behind a fairy changeling, who owes me her life and is consequently in my charge now" was an appropriate thing to tell Merlin.

 

* * *

 

The training was hard, and his magic didn't help him much. There was at least one other in his group of recruits who had some magic and knew how to use it, and after hearing that Merlin kept a register of families with magic in their blood, Alistair suspected that it was no coincidence.

His suspicions where confirmed when he met _Kingsman's_ second wizard after completing his training, who cheerfully admitted that he was the knights' fallback option, should anything happen to Merlin before he had a chance to fully train his successor.

"Why aren't you being trained as his successor, then?" Alistair asked thoughtlessly.

Tristan gave a smile that looked well and truly pained, and there was injured pride in his beautiful blue eyes. "Merlin doesn't think I'm good enough. He also doesn't like me very much, not that it matters. He is a very peculiar man."

"How come?" Tristan didn't seem like a terribly unlikable person. He had an easy smile and laughter, and a _fae_ grace about him, and his face was the most expressive Alistair had ever seen. He also had a lovely voice.

Tristan's face assumed the sad expression of a kicked dog. "I may have been stupid and made a pass at him once...?"

Alistair stared.

Tristan gave a sigh. "He did not take kindly to that." His expression turned defiant. "It's hardly my fault that I am attracted to power like a moth to the light," he said petulantly.

"You are part _fae_ , aren't you?" Alistair asked, feeling sympathetic.

Tristan nodded. "On my mother's side, yes. Not one of the high courts, mind you. Just your regular, run of the mill _fae_. But it's enough to make Merlin's hackles rise. It's a stupid thing, really. Right out of a storybook. One fine summer's eve, my father, who is a woodsman, caught himself a fairy, my mother, and he gave her bread, and milk, and honey, and bound her to him, so she stayed."

Catching Alistair's alarmed expression, he chuckled. "It's not as bad. She isn't unhappy, my mother. They lead a quiet life in a little cottage at the edge of the woods. He tends to the forest, wounded animals, sick trees, whatever needs tending. Sometimes, she slips away to dance in the moonlight. Their neighbors think them very odd, but I doubt my parents care much about their opinion. They are quite happy by themselves."

An idea grew inside Alistair, raising its head like a spring flower sprouting from damp soil. Tristan might be just the right person to share his Roxy-related troubles with.

"What would you do," he said cautiously, "if you found a fairy changeling among your own family?"

Tristan sent him a blank look, blue eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "I am _fae_ ," he said. "We do not place changelings among our own, that would be somewhat beside the point."

"Among the human side of your family, then."

Tristan gave a graceful shrug. "I don't know? Try to figure out where it came from, and if it may be harmful?"

"And how would you go about that?"

The other man looked slightly uncomfortable, as if Alistair had asked him a private and not particularly appropriate question. "I... have my sources. I would ask around. Changelings are not as common as they used to be. Someone would be bound to know some gossip." His eyes flew back to Alistair's face, startled. "Did you find a changeling among your own?"

Alistair nodded gravely.

"How old is it?" Tristan asked with a certain sense of urgency in his voice.

" _She_ is going to be ten soon."

Tristan relaxed a bit, but not all the way. "Good. Then there is some time, at least. They get into all kinds of mischief as children, but they don't usually grow dangerous until they reach puberty. You said it was a female changeling?"

"Yes," Alistair said slowly. "Does that matter?"

"A great deal," Tristan said. "Male changelings usually don't make it to adulthood. They either die or disappear back into the _fae_  lands before that. The result is the same to the family. Female changelings, though... there are seven ways this could go terribly wrong, and the best you can hope for is that she will take a moonlight stroll one night and be taken in by her own, never to be seen again."

"What?" Alistair asked. "No!"

His reaction startled both Tristan and himself.

"I don't want to lose her," he explained.

Tristan gave him a long, long look. It was impossible to read. "She is _fae_ ," he finally said. "You are human. There is no path between the sky and the earth that you will walk together."

"You are _fae_ , too, and we seem to be walking together all right," Alistair pointed out, gesturing at the garden path they were strolling down.

Tristan stopped in his steps, forcing him to stop as well. "Alistair," he said intensely, stepping in front of him and looking straight at him, " _Percival_. There is a world of difference between me and a changeling. Trust me on this. I may cast a glamour on you, but mine are weak, and your own magic will protect you. I may try to steal your dreams, but out of selfish desire, not to turn them against you. I may bite your throat, but I will not drink your blood."

Alistair was baffled for a moment, then he said: "If _that_ is the way you propositioned Merlin, I am not at all surprised he did not take you up on your offer."

 

* * *

 

One after another, Alistair met the other members of _Kingsman_. There were the knights, of course, and Arthur who stood at their head, and Merlin. There were also the squires. They were not, and would never become knights, but they fulfilled other important duties. They did research, maintained communications, collected material and evidence, provided all manner of logistics, filed paperwork, kept archives, provided backup and a second set of eyes and ears to knights in the field, staffed the London headquarter and the satellite offices, found safe houses, tracked down targets, provided medical assistance, maintained cars, planes, helicopters and other means of transport, and in a pinch, did a bit of dog sitting, if needed.

Speaking of dogs...

Alistair, who had never been a dog person (or a pet person in general), was now owner of an Irish Setter named Kiwi (the nickname had stuck after she had tried to eat a kiwi fruit as a puppy and almost died in the process). Kiwi followed him everywhere he went like a second shadow. When he walked the grounds, she ran ahead of him. When he walked the hallways of the manor, she trotted along by his side. When he sat at his desk, she lay beneath it, preferably on top of his feet. She slept in the doorway of his bedroom or next to his bed, brought him the morning paper or slightly chewed up shoes, and watched him with doting doe eyes.

She wasn't a loud dog, but not one you could easily ignore, either.

She had also taken a particular liking to Tristan, mostly because he fed her scraps whenever he thought Alistair wasn't looking. Tristan's own dog was a nervous Italian greyhound with checkered grey and white fur, thin as a wisp and always in motion. It answered to the name of Cappuccino, shortened to Cino... if it answered to anything at all. It was terribly spoiled, and Alistair had a sneaking suspicion that it slept in Tristan's bed, curled up with him on the sofa, and generally did as it pleased.

It was said that dogs and their owners usually shared certain similar traits, and that was certainly true for most of the knights. Harry Hart's terrier was just as tenacious as he could be whenever it had bitten into something and refused to let go. It also shared his apparently boundless energy, and his fondness for lemon biscuits.

Richard's bulldog moved in the same slow and measured way as its owner, and it was loyal to a fault. They would both have gladly rolled over and died for the sake of their mission.

Dagonet's Pomeranian was fussy and looked perfectly harmless, but it had sharp little teeth and it bit when least expected.

Tristan and Cappuccino weren't particularly similar, except for the fact that they were both affectionate to the point of being obnoxious. Alistair felt that he could not spend more than half an hour at headquarters without one or both of them assaulting him with demands for attention and physical comfort. He usually granted the first, because it was very hard to ignore them, and occasionally found himself granting the second as well, with his hand already petting Cino's ears or Tristan's head on his shoulder before he even noticed it. It comforted him somewhat that they both acted the same way around almost _anyone._ Cino didn't like Arthur (he probably hadn't forgiven him for the dog test yet), and Tristan turned fidgety and embarrassed around Merlin, but other than that, they both snuggled up to everyone... usually quite literally.

It was not much of a secret that Tristan also slept with some of the other knights or squires on occasion, but nobody made much of an issue of it. Being half _fae_ , he got a little more leeway in those matters than others.

"It's in his nature," Harry told Alistair, shrugging. "He's a natural flirt, and he doesn't think much of it... but he doesn't mean any harm."

"Merlin seems to think otherwise," Alistair pointed out.

Harry laughed. "Merlin is a terrible prude, in some ways, and he doesn't quite understand the fae. Tristan rubs him the wrong way... but mostly because  he regrets not taking him up on his offer."

"He could have Tristan with _one word_ of encouragement. Without words, even." Tristan clearly had it bad when it came to Merlin. His analogy of a moth being drawn to the light was terribly accurate.

"Yes," Harry agreed, drawing out the word, "and that is part of the problem. It's too easy. Merlin enjoys a challenge. He mistrusts easy solutions and readily available things."

"What about you?" Alistair asked bluntly.

Harry shook his head. "No. Tristan isn't quite my cup of tea. I love him dearly, and I would trust him with my life, if it came to that, but he and I want different things from life, and I do not go about sex as casually as he does. It's all just a game to him." He looked at Alistair shrewdly. "I notice you haven't fallen prey to his charms, either."

Alistair gave a wry smile. "To his charms, yes. But I don't want to bed him. He doesn't quite understand it, but he respects it. Which, obviously, does nothing to keep him from running roughshod all over my personal boundaries. I have never met _anyone_ who was that tactile. It is as if that was his primary sense; he is like a child that has to touch everything and anyone. It's quite inappropriate."

Harry's dog gave a sharp bark just then, announcing that somebody was approaching, and not a moment later, Merlin knocked and stepped into the room.

Outwardly, the wizard seemed perfectly composed, but something was amiss. Alistair could not quite tell how he knew, he just did. Maybe it was his own magic, setting up a warning beacon. An upset wizard was a dangerous thing, after all

"Galahad," Merlin greeted, "Percival." Their codenames, not their true names.

Harry frowned. "It's one of those days?" he asked, sounding somewhat dismayed.

"I'm afraid so," Merlin said.

"Let's have it, then."

"You are aware of the ongoing trial for Bedivere's position?"  Merlin asked. The question was mostly rhetorical. Harry had had a candidate in that trial, until he had dropped out after the first task. Alistair had not proposed any candidate, because he did not know of anyone qualified to enter the trials.

"We have a bit of a situation," Merlin said delicately. "It turns out that one of the candidates was coerced to enter the trials."

They both stared at him.

"I beg your pardon?" Harry asked, his voice chill.

Merlin nodded, his expression grim. "Pellinore's candidate."

"His _adopted son_?!" Harry looked incredulous. "Why on Earth...!"

"There's more to this story. Come. You should see this."

Mutely, they followed Merlin out of the room and through the manor, the two dogs following at their heels.

Merlin led them out onto the grounds, across the vast lawn and to a small stretch of wood. There was a wooden shed there that was used by the groundskeepers to store equipment in winter. Now in the summer, it was mostly empty.

Cino stood by the closed door, shivering with excitement and making soft growling noises that were quite at odds with his usually friendly self. As they approached, the other dogs stopped, sniffed. Their hackles rose. Kiwi gave a surprised _'woof'_ and Mr. Pickles bared his teeth, growling.

"That's passing strange," Harry said, looking at the three dogs.

"Not if you know what's inside." Merlin rapped his knuckles against the wood of the shed's door, softly, as if not to startle the dogs. There was no response at first, but after a moment, the door creaked open, and a slender figures slipped out.

Tristan.

He had never looked more _fae_ , less human, than in that moment. His light hair was wild and his deep blue eyes wide and darker than usual. Light and shadow shifted around him in a way they would not have done for any ordinary human. There was something feral to his appearance, something wild and untamed, and potentially dangerous to approach.

Merlin raised a hand, as if to appease him, or to hold him back.

"Tristan," he said in a soft voice, dropping his hand to put it on the younger man's arm. Tristan stopped and looked down at the hand, then up at Merlin's face. Whatever he saw there seemed to appease him. Merlin moved his hand in small, careful strokes along his arm, in the way one might pet a wolf, rather than a tame dog. After a long moment, Tristan visibly eased into the touch, leaning in, and the tension passed.

"Pellinore's candidate," Merlin said, turning back to the other two knights, "is not quite what we presumed him to be. I suppose you have heard that years ago, Pellinore took in a young woman and her child. The woman later became his wife. The boy he raised as his son."

Harry nodded. Alistair had not actually known this, but he had heard others mention that Pellinore was married. It was a fairly unusual thing for a _Kingsman_ knight.

"Pellinore hails from Stromness in the Orkneys, and his family still owns lands nearby. You might call the two of us countrymen, ignorant as you Southerners are, but my family always lived on the mainland, and his is from the islands. I also spent most of my childhood in Glasgow, and it is a long, long way from Glasgow to Stromness."

Harry gave an exasperated chuckle. "We get your point. Move on."

"The North still has plenty of wild places," Merlin said simply. "Places where few humans set foot. But that does not mean they are lonely places. Fishers have been telling stories for centuries, stories of things in the sea. Things that will come out to play at certain times, or even mingle with humans."

He was still idly petting Tristan, who leant against him, seeming lost in a dreamily content way, like a drowsy cat in the sun, or a sleepy child. And Alistair thought that _'things that come out to play at certain times'_ might just as well apply to Tristan's folk, dancing in the moonlight.

" _Selkies_ are shapeshifter," Merlin continued. "They live as seals in the sea, but sometimes they will come out and shed their skin, and take on human form so that they may walk on dry land. It is said that if a man steals a female _selkie's_ skin and hides it from her, she is in his power and must become his wife if he asks her. It is also said among fishermen that _selkies_ make very good wives... so long as you keep their skins hidden from them, because if a _selkie_ woman should ever find her skin, she will take it and return to the sea, and never come back to see her husband. She may come back to see her children, but never the man who has taken her from the sea."

A dark suspicion dawned on Alistair. "Pellinore married a _selkie_?" he asked aghast.

Merlin gave a grim nod. "And kept her skin hidden, so that she might not return to the sea. He also took her child."

"No," Harry said, his expression incredulous. "Pellinore's candidate is...?"

Merlin nodded again. "Tristan sniffed him out. The _fae_ are wary of the sea, and Pellinore's candidate appears to have a decidedly fishy air about him, if you know what to look for."

Tristan raised his head off Merlin's chest. "He is not actually that bad," he said. "Not very fishy. Just a little fishy."

"Hush," Merlin said not unkindly. "Be that as it may; Tristan got the boy to talk, and the whole miserable story spilled out of him. At first, I was quite unwilling to believe it, but we set Tristan's overexcited little creature to sniff around in Pellinore's house, and it came up with two sealskins, carefully folded away in a chest in the basement. Pellinore thought he was very clever, sealing the chest with three locks and a spell, but he wasn't reckoning with me when he did it." There was a note of dismissive pride in his voice.

Tristan looked  up at him, licking his lips. Alistair knew that look. He had been at the receiving end of Tristan's kisses twice, before firmly laying down the rule that kissing was definitely too intimate contact between two friends who shared no familial ties.

"No," Merlin told him in the firm, but somewhat exasperated way one might use when training an obstinate puppy.

In the background, Harry chuckled.

"So what now?" Alistair asked. "Can't we just give him back his skin and let him go?"

" _We_ already did that," Merlin said pointedly, nodding towards the shed. "He's in there, cradling that sealskin to his chest. He is understandably quite emotional right now. But I am not certain if driving him to the sea and letting him go would be the right thing to do. He has spent more time among humans than with his own kin, and I am not entirely certain his own folk would take him back in."

"It's similar with a doe - if the kid smells of humans, she won't take it back," Tristan explained.

"Quite."

"Well, he can't stay in there." Harry sounded dubious. "What of his mother?"

"She wasn't in the house. We left the sealskin on the dining room table for her to find, as it is rightfully hers. She may have returned to the sea by now. After all, he is fully grown, and hardly her concern anymore."

"That's harsh," Alistair protested.

Tristan shrugged. "It is nature."

"How about we ask him what _he_ wants?" Alistair suggested, and they all stared at him as if it was a novel concept. Alistair rolled his eyes at them and walked into the shed.

On the ground in the far corner sat the most beautiful boy he had ever seen. He was truly a boy, not a young man, barely a day older than eighteen. His hair was dark and swung in soft curls until it grazed his shoulders. His eyes were dark as well, and his face had a milky white complexion unmarred by any freckles. His built was lithe, but oddly rounded, as if there wasn't a harsh angle to his body, round face, round shoulders, all smooth curves and blunted edges.

He looked up, and Alistair saw the tears streaking his face. In his hands, he clutched a large, dark sealskin.

Alistair dropped to a crouch, as if approaching a dog or a small child. "Are you in pain?" he asked.

The boy shook his head.

"What's your name?"

"Irvin." A soft sniff.

It was an unusual name. Not so unusual if you knew your etymology, a subject that had sidetracked Alistair from his studies for a while, and knew it to be related to water.

As if echoing his thoughts, the boy added: "It means _green water_. My mother named me after one of her favorite hunting grounds, where the water turns green under a summer sun. She told me. I had forgotten for so long..." His voice trailed off.

"Would you like to go back to where you came from?" Alistair asked gently.

Irvin looked at him blandly. "I have absolutely no idea where I came from."

"Oh." Well. That naturally complicated things.

Irvin sat up a bit more straightly. "Can I go on with the trials?"

Now it was Alistair's turn to stare. "You want to go on with the trials?"

Irvin shrugged. "I hate to leave things unfinished."

 

* * *

 

 

"No," Merlin said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I already have a _fae_ changeling on my hands, I hardly need a web-footed shapeshifter as well!"

"Hey!" Tristan protested. "I may be part _fae_ , but I am _not_ a changeling."

Merlin whisked the comment away with a negligent hand.

"He's done well so far," Harry said thoughtfully, eyeing Irvin with unveiled curiosity. "I say, give it a try? Can't hurt, can it? I imagine he would be perfect for any mission that requires a set of good lungs and a no fear of dark water."

Irvin nodded enthusiastically. "I am a good swimmer," he said modestly.

"Yeah, well, what if one day, he decides he prefers paddling around in the sea to being a part of _Kingsman_?" Merlin asked scathingly.

Harry shrugged. "As exits go, it beats dying on the job, I suppose."

Merlin glared at him.

Harry looked unimpressed.

"It's hardly his fault his has webs between his toes," Tristan pointed out.

"Shut up," Irvin said without any malice.

Tristan grinned at him. Irvin grinned back.

Merlin groaned. "I can see an unholy alliance forming. Mark my words. We are all going to regret this."

 

* * *

 

As unholy alliances went, Tristan's and Irvin's - or rather Tristan's and Bedivere's, because to Merlin's surprise and horror, the _selkie_ passed all the tests with flying colors - was a very efficient one.

They were sent out on one mission after Irvin passed the trials, and on many more afterwards, as soon as the handlers and Arthur realized that they made up a very good team. Not only was Bedivere the only knight other than Percival, who tolerated Tristan's exuberance and clinginess for longer periods of time, but they actually balanced each other out and acted as controls.

Tristan became calmer and more focused when he was around Bedivere, which improved his performance considerably, and Bedivere, who was terribly awkward in social situations and had a tendency to fret over minor details of a plan, gained a measure of self-confidence and a view for the bigger picture after working with Tristan for a while.

Bedivere was also usually able to talk Tristan out of his more stupid ideas, keeping him out of the worst mischief and giving both Merlin and Arthur some room to breathe.

On the other hand, Tristan never mentioned it if Bedivere slipped away at night, took a swim in the Thames butt-naked, or jumped of the ferry from Calais to Dover, claiming that he was bored and that his skin was itching for saltwater.

It was perhaps inevitable that they should also end up in bed, given Tristan's proclivities, but the outcome of _that_ little adventure was surprising to everyone including Tristan himself.

After their tryst, Bedivere calmly informed him that his roaming days were over.

" _Selkies_ are monogamous," he said, looking at Tristan sternly.

"So?" Tristan shrugged. "I'm not a _selkie_."

Bedivere continued to look at him. For a long, long time.

" _Fine_ ," Tristan whined. "You are no fun."

But he remained faithful to Bedivere after that... for the most part.

Bedivere never called him out on it. They both knew that one could shed one's skin, but never quite part with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when Arthur says in the movie that they have not had occasion for a toast in seventeen years? Well. That always struck me as highly unlikely. I mean, come on, these guys are saving the world on a daily basis, often enough in frontal assault, and bulletproof suits or not, seventeen years without anyone dying, retiring, or being too badly injured to go on fighting? Nope, I think not. That's about as realistic as James-Lancelot not shedding any blood after Gazelle cut him in half. So all my stories are written under the assumption that there were recruitments between James and Eggsy.
> 
> With Bedivere, another creature from Scottish/Irish mythology makes an appearance - a selkie. Selkies are seals who shapeshift into people - or the other way around. Pretty close to your classic mermaid in their relations with humans, you know, tragic love and all, even though there are both males and females. Since some seals get along fine in fresh water (Baikal seal) I don't think I went too far by allowing Bedivere an occasional nightly swim in the Thames.


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Do you make a habit of swimming naked in the Thames at two o'clock in the morning?" Roxy asked.
> 
> He hesitated, cocking his head slightly. "Perhaps."
> 
> He began to look around, as if searching for something. "I left a towel and some clothes around here somewhere, did you see them?"
> 
> Roxy looked around and spotted the bundle of cloth beneath a stone bench to her right. Her night vision had always been excellent. "There."
> 
> "Oh, good." He looked relieved. "They have been stolen before, and walking home like this is such a nuisance. It always gets me funny looks."

 

For a while after Alistair's sudden departure, Roxy lived in a story.

Only, it wasn't a particularly nice story. She was the tragic heroine, searching for her lost love (well - friend, or brother, because Roxy certainly didn't love Alistair _that_ way). The Queen of Fairies had stolen him one stormy night, when she had been out riding with her wild hunt. She had seen him stand in the shade of an elder tree, and because his heart was so good and pure, his aura glowed with it, drawing the fairies to him like cats to a pot of cream.

"Fair knight," the Queen of Fairies had called out, "would you ride with me tonight, and for all the nights that are yet to come?"

Of course, Alistair had struggled against her spell, because he did not want to ride with the fairies and leave Roxy behind, but her glamour had been so strong that he could not resist.

And laughing, the fairies had pulled him along with them, and now he must live with them, and ride with them every night of Halloween and on other stormy nights; until somebody was brave enough to challenge the Queen of Fairies for him, and to free him.

Which was all good and logical; the only problem was finding the thrice-damned fairies.

Roxy scouted every elder tree in a fifteen mile radius from her house. After seven months of scrambling through parks and private gardens - her magical lock-picking skills came in very handy - she knew that there were exactly 147 of them large enough to stand in their shade... if you happened to be a ten-year old. There were also 28 others still too small and three she could not reach, even for her best efforts.

However, no amount of hanging out beneath elder trees after dark brought her so much of a glimpse of fairy. All it brought her were scratched arms and legs from climbing over fences and scrambling through bushes, dark rings under her eyes from lack of sleep, and a thorough knowledge of the gardens and parks of her hometown.

It also worried her mother and Matilda, until they determined that Roxy's problem was probably sleepwalking, consulted a doctor, who could find nothing wrong with her, and reached the conclusion that this was probably a natural part of her growing-up, possibly a precursor to puberty, and therefore something that would go away given a little time.

Meanwhile, Roxy tried other ways to flush out the fairies.

She read every book of fairy tales she could get her hands on. She left out milk, and bread and honey on the doorstep, on her windowsill and in the garden. With it, she caught two hedgehogs, five cats, a number of mice, a colony of ants and a blackbird, but never a fairy.

She charmed the gardener out of his wits and made him grow plants that were known to attract or be associated with fairies - foxglove and holly, nemesia, hawthorn, heather and thyme. Her mother saw her sudden interest in flowers as a sign that Roxy was finally on her way to becoming a proper girly girl, and indulged her.

She wrote to Caitlín: _How do you find fairies?_

Caitlín wrote back: _You are going down a dangerous path, my love. Beware._ But she did send back a few handwritten pages filled with fairy lore.

None of it helped.

For nearly three years, Roxy remained convinced that the Queen of Fairies had taken Alistair, but the fairies refused to be lured in by any of her spells and herb lore.

Still, Roxy never fully gave up her search for Alistair.

(Which also explained her reaction, when she met Merlin for the first time, some fourteen years after Alistair's disappearance:

Roxy stared at the wizard, and the wizard stared back, unblinking.

"Fuck me," Roxy said roughly, almost surprised to hear her own voice, "you're the Queen of Fairies."

Merlin _did_ blink at that. And Alistair gave a sharp, dismayed call of: "Roxanne!"

The anecdote made it through the _Kingsman_ grapevine later that day, eliciting chuckles from Harry and Dagonet.

Tristan thought it was the funniest thing he had ever heard.)

Puberty hit Roxy hard just before she turned thirteen, making her moody, anxious, agitated, and hostile to anyone over the age of eighteen. Hormones messed with her feelings, menstrual bleeding was messy, and nasty, and painful, and ugh, she never, ever wanted to have children. Boys were stupid, girls were stupid, the looks they gave each other were stupid, and Roxy wanted for nothing more than to crawl beneath a rock, curl up, and sleep for the next three years, until the madness had passed and she could go on with her life.

She did nothing of the sort.

Instead, she grit her teeth so hard it hurt and threw herself into school work. She quit dancing (too many girls in spandex, blinking at her coyly) and evaded team sports (boys, laughing  and joking, muscles playing under their skin as they reached for the ball, ran, or wrestled each other). Instead, she took up fencing. Most people weren't particularly attractive beneath a mask and poking at you with pointy things that promised potentially fatal injury.

Then, her parents had the brilliant idea to send her to France for the summer, in order to improve her language skills. Roxy went to Cannes, swam in the Mediterranean, learned to like mussels, improved her language skills, and French-kissed two French boys and three French girls. All in all, it wasn't a bad summer.

She was asked what she wanted for her sixteenth birthday.

"I want you to find Alistair," she told her father, and he shook his head.

Instead, they gave her a horse.

He was a fine horse, a light-footed gelding, with a gleaming black coat and a little white star upon his front. He nuzzled at her hand, and Roxy hid her face at his long neck, crying into the dark fur. During the next few months, Roxy spent more time with him than with any two-legged creature.

She was seventeen when her brother Alexander, now twenty-eight, got married to a pretty young woman named Claire, who looked so much like their mother that it hurt to see them next to each other. Claire was soft-spoken, frail and pale, and she had absolutely no ambitions in life that weren't fulfilled by marrying a dashing young lawyer with a brilliant career ahead of him and moving into a nice house, where she would serve tea and gossip, and have babies.

Roxy had nothing to say to her.

She watched the wedding party, family and unfamiliar faces. Adrian was there, wearing uniform. He had joined the Navy right out of school, and was as much a prick as ever, albeit a much better looking one. A gaggle of girls from Claire's side of the family were fawning over him. Roxy averted her gaze.

 

* * *

 

She finished school. Her grades were excellent, the whole world lay ahead of her, and it brought her no joy.

The night after her graduation, she ran.

She packed a small bag and took a late-night train to London. Aimlessly, she wandered the city, the broad streets and narrow ones, the bridges and gardens, passing monuments and statues, unseeing, unfeeling.

She sat on cold stone in the depth of night somewhere along the Thames Embankment, listening to the breath of the sleeping city, when the magic folk she had searched for so long finally found her. Unfortunately, it was not fairies.

Roxy had seen her share of naked people by then, and the sight did not particularly alarm her, but she had never seen a naked man step from the Thames as if it was his private bathtub. He shook out his dark hair, sending sparks of water flying.

Roxy stared. Nope, her first impression had been right. He wore not a shred of clothing, and he seemed perfectly unconcerned.

He stretched languidly, his skin pale in the dim light. Muscles moved underneath with a fluid grace.

Roxy cleared her throat, because she was starting to feel like a voyeur.

His head jerked up, and turned, and his eyes focused on her.

"Oh." The sound was soft, surprised. He didn't seem particularly self-conscious for being caught naked by a stranger, but apologized for her sake. "I'm sorry. I did not see you there."

"Do you make a habit of swimming naked in the Thames at two o'clock in the morning?" Roxy asked.

He hesitated, cocking his head slightly. "Perhaps."

He began to look around, as if searching for something. "I left a towel and some clothes around here somewhere, did you see them?"

Roxy looked around and spotted the bundle of cloth beneath a stone bench to her right. Her night vision had always been excellent. "There."

"Oh, good." He looked relieved. "They have been stolen before, and walking home like this is such a nuisance. It always gets me funny looks."

"I wonder why," Roxy muttered, watching the long, sinuous curve of his bare back as he bent to retrieve the bundle. "What's your name?"

He paused, half hidden by the towel. "Well, now," he said, "that's an interesting question. Not an easy one to answer, either. My mother named me Irvin, but I have been called by another name for some years. My lover calls me other names still, but he is _fae_ and hence a silly creature, so you cannot really blame him for that."

Not her target demography, then, Roxy thought with a hint of regret. Something else caught her attention in that statement, though.

"Your lover is _fae_?" She asked, biting her tongue before she could ask, 'what are you, then?'

He looked at her again, shirt already on. "Why, yes," he said. "Part _fae_ , at least. So are you, aren't you?"

"Me?" Roxy asked, taken aback. "Uh... no?"

"I think yes," he said. "I can smell it on you. You _fae_ , you think you are very clever, because you can smell the sea on us, but it's a two-way street. I can smell the forest on you. The damp earth, the old leaves, the honeysuckle." He took a deep breath with half-closed eyes. "The honeysuckle most of all. You all smell of honeysuckle. So sweet." He shook his head, as if ripping himself from his reverie.

"I am not _fae_ ," Roxy protested. "But I'm looking for fairies."

"Are they mutually exclusive?" Irvin asked. "Can't you be _fae_ and looking for your kinfolk?"

"They are _not_ my kinfolk!" Roxy hissed. "They are evil, and they steal people."

"And turn the milk sour, and seduce pretty maidens in the forest?" He asked, chuckling. "Yes, well. We all have our bad habits."

"Stealing people is a lot more than a bad habit."

"Speak for yourself," Irvin said. "My fairy has never stolen another. He breaks hearts left and right, yes, and he's caused many a sleepless night to those who fall for his charms, but other than that, he is perfectly harmless." He gave her a level, calculating look. "Maybe you should meet him."

It was very, very tempting. And Roxy had not quite outgrown the age of fairy tales yet.

"Okay," she said.

Irvin smiled at her.

"So, what exactly are _you?_ " she asked him as they walked through the night-quiet streets. He was now fully dressed, including shoes, and had slung the towel over his shoulders.

Another smile, a flash of brilliant teeth as they passed a streetlamp. "I'm a _selkie_. You may not have heard of us, since your folk usually stays away from the water."

She had heard of them, in half-remembered childhood tales.

But... "I thought you were all female? Like mermaids?"

He laughed. "God, no. Nature wouldn't tolerate such a thing, would it? That's just yarn. Sailor's and fishermen's tales."

 

* * *

 

Irvin lived in a spacious apartment with a view of the Thames that probably cost more in monthly rent than Roxy's father made with his prosperous law firm. The living room was a large, open space with a glass front that led out onto a balcony. He bade her sit at a high table and handed her a glass of water with a solemn look and the promise that she was under no obligations if she drank it.

It was all very strange.

A dog came to greet them, a gentle giant of a St. Bernadine, sniffing at her legs and settling down on the floor next to her, as if to guard her.

Irvin padded upstairs on naked feet,  his steps barely audible. There were moments of quiet, and then a bit of a scuffle and a surprised exclamation. "You _what?!"_

Irvin's voice was a quiet answering murmur that she did not quite catch.

"No, I'm not. I absolutely am not! Are you insane?!" Whoever it was, he did not seem particularly happy right now.

Steps on the stairs.

A man suddenly stood in the room, light-haired and slender, the fair, fiery counterpoint to Irvin's calm dark waters.

The hairs on the back of Roxy's neck rose, and an unfamiliar prickle went down her spine.

The man stared at her, standing still as if frozen. Irvin came down the stairs behind him, looking puzzled as he stood at his shoulder, close enough to touch his chest to the other's back.

"Who _are you_?" The light-haired man finally demanded of Roxy.

"My name is Roxanne," she said, taken aback by the hostility in his voice. "But people call me Roxy."

He shook his head violently. "No, no, no. You are no human girl, no matter what you pretend to be. _Iarlais (changeling)._ "

"Excuse me?" Roxy said. She was growing really tired of being called names, and this was not a particularly friendly one, either.

"Come now," Irvin said, putting a hand on the other man's shoulder. "I thought you would be happy to see a distant relative. There are so few of your folk around, in this day and age."

The other shook his hand off, shaking violently, but never taking his eyes of Roxy. "Why have you come here?" he asked.

"Because your friend invited me."

The man took a deep steadying breath, before finally turning to face Irvin. "Love, you _do not_ bring a _changeling_ home. It's bad luck. It's just not done. You are welcome to drag in all the fish you can catch, and anything else you might find in the river, but not this."

It was such an odd statement, an Roxy was suddenly assaulted with an image of Irvin carrying a fish in his mouth, that she had to smile.

Irvin shrugged. "She seemed perfectly harmless, and a little bit lost," he said. "I don't think she has any harmful magic to speak of. And she smells like you."

His partner rolled his eyes. "Yes, because we all smell like honeysuckle to you. You couldn't tell Titania from the lowest pixie if your life depended on it."

"Might I remind you," Irvin said, with the merest hint of irony in his voice, "that you once uncovered me by smelling the sea on me? After which you proceeded to tell everyone that I smelled fishy."

"I didn't say very fishy!" The other protested. "Just a little fishy."

Irvin raised his brows, but turned to face Roxy. "This is Tristan," he said, "since he doesn't have manners enough to introduce himself."

"Pleased to meet you," Roxy said.

Tristan sent her a dubious look. "Are you?"

She shrugged. "If you will stop calling me names. It's not polite with someone you've just met, you know. What did you call me before?"

" _Iarlais._ Changeling _._ "

"Well, I'm not."

"Oh yes, you are. And an odd one at that." He took a cautious step closer. "What is your house?"

"My house?" Roxy asked, uncomprehending.

He gave an impatient gesture. "Your family. Your court. Your allegiance."

"I don't know."

"You don't know," he echoed, incredulous. "How come you don't know? You are old enough to be married, how come you don't know your own family?"

"I know my family," Roxy protested. "They live in Birmingham. I have two older brothers. My father is a lawyer."

Tristan shook his head. "Not the family you were placed in. Not the family you grew up with. Your _real_ family."

"They are my real family," Roxy said, thinking of Alistair. "But I can do a little magic, if that helps?"

"I'm willing to bet that you can do a lot more than _a little magic_ ," Tristan said emphatically. "If I were to attack you, how would you defend yourself?"

"I would try to kick you in the stomach, or to break your nose...?" Roxy said dubiously. "Depends on the attack."

Irvin chuckled.

"Suppose I believe you," Tristan said, blue eyes narrowed as he looked at her as if trying to discover the inner workings of her heart and mind, "suppose you are the only fairy changeling to make it to adulthood without ever learning of her origins. You _know_ I cannot trust you on your word alone." He frowned slightly. "Or at least, you should know. You are in my home. You are sitting at my table. I need to know that you will not cause any harm to me and mine." His eyes briefly darted back to Irvin.

It seemed a sensible request to Roxy, even though she was still puzzled - and perhaps slightly flattered - that he considered her that much of a threat.

"I swear on the elderflower, and the holly berry, and the bark of the oak tree," she said solemnly. "I swear on my blood, on my name, and on the light in my eyes."

Tristan gave a deep, apparently truly relieved sigh. "That's a strong oath," he said carefully. "You do realize that it could bring you considerable trouble if you break it."

Roxy shrugged. "I don't intend to break it."

"Wonderful," Irvin said wryly, "does this mean we can all sit down and have a cup of tea together like civilized people?"

 

* * *

 

And so, in the early hours of a summer morning that dawned brightly on them, Roxy learned that Tristan was _fae_ on his mother's side, born to a savvy woodsman and his fairy wife. He was a wizard, too, but as he said himself, not a particularly strong one. It was his _fae_ blood, combined with a few drops of magic from his father's line, that let him do more magic than most, and draw strength from the earth and all the living things around him.

Because that was what a true wizard did, apparently. He could see the unseen forces moving through all the living things around him, and between them, and he could draw on them to work his magic.

"Magic is in the space between two breaths," Tristan said. "You can feel it there."

Irvin, apart from being a s _elkie_ , and hence able to shapeshift into a seal, had no magic to speak of. He had a natural affinity with water, and particularly with the sea, and apparently, the _fae_ all smelled of honeysuckle to him, but that was it.

They were a _perfect_ couple. Fire and water, light and dark, bright energy and cool, dark strength. It also didn't hurt that they were both perfectly lovely, so beautiful it hurt to look at them at times.

Tristan was reluctant to tell her much of the _fae_ , but from what little she gleaned, she now knew that he owed his tenuous allegiance to one of the noble families of the summer court, a _Sidhe_ family, bright and powerful and ancient. Which also explained why Irvin jokingly called him _leanan sídhe, fairy lover_ , which invariably led to Tristan complaining that he had a horrible accent, and that it was not at all appropriate to call a man (who was also half human) by such a name.

"My folk are _daoine maithe,_ " Tristan said. "The good people. The fair folk. _Fae_ , but not of the high courts. Which is a good thing. _Fae_ politics are a right mess. Nobody would want to get tangled up in that."

He eyed Roxy speculatively. "Which leads me to wonder where y _ou_ came from. Changelings are a rare thing, nowadays. I wonder if somebody was trying to get rid of you, or trying to save you from the intrigues of the courts. Both things are possible. A _fae_ child is a precious thing. We do not give away our own so lightly."

He looked her up and down. "There is a gentleness in you, and innocence. You may be of the summer court. But it might also just be your age. Who knows. Maybe your true place is out riding with the _sluagh sídhe,_ the fairy host." He shuddered.

Roxy thought of the Queen of Fairies and her wild hunt.

She asked: "Is there a Queen of Fairies?"

Tristan frowned. "There are several, depending on how you look at it. Most of the ladies of the high court could be called a queen in their own right."

"Is there one who rides with the wild hunt, and steals people when they cross her path?"

"You are thinking of Tam Lin," he said. "Well, yes. I suppose it happens. Every now and again, one of the _fae_ will fall for a mortal, and not even the high courts seem to be immune against it." He smiled wryly at Irvin. "Never mind the low folk, falling for web-footed _selkies_."

Irvin gave him a gentle, playful shove. "Nobody forced you."

"Nobody forced my mother to accept my father's bread, and honey, and milk, either," Tristan said. "But we are stupid like that. It's very easy to catch a fairy, if you know what you are doing."

Roxy shook her head. "I've been trying for years, and I've never caught one."

"Why would you want to catch a fairy?" Irvin asked. "You _are_ a fairy."

"I didn't know that at the time," Roxy said. (And she still doubted it, but refrained from mentioning that.) "I was trying to find something I had lost."

"A charm will help you there," Tristan said. "You don't need a fairy for that."

"It depends on the loss," Roxy replied with a sad smile.

 

* * *

 

After breakfast, Tristan and Irvin sent her home to her parents.

But they made her two promises.

Tristan promised to try and find out who her true family were, and who had given her away as a child, and for what purpose. He warned her that the truth might not be easy to uncover, and that it might be a long while before she heard from him again.

Irvin promised her that if she ever needed help, or a place to stay, she could call him. It was a generous promise, because he meant every word of it.

Roxy sat on the train from London to Birmingham, thinking about _fae_ and _selkies_.

What an odd, mysterious place the world was.

She told her parents that she had been out partying with friends to celebrate her graduation, and they accepted the lie without comment. They were, however, more than a bit dismayed, when instead of moving to Oxford, or Cambridge, or St. Andrews for her studies, Roxy left for Sandhurst. Neither of them had expected that, least of all her mother.

"But you are so young!" she protested. "And a woman!"

Roxy shrugged and continued to pack her bags.

 

* * *

 

Sandhurst treated her well.

She made friends quickly, not a lot of friends, but a few that she could rely on. There was something comforting to the strict military discipline, to knowing what to do and where your place in the world was at all times.

It was nice to be away from home, and even nicer to come back and rub Adrian's face into the fact that she was vastly more successful than he could ever dream of being.

Occasionally, she still wrote letters to Caitlín, who had gotten married and settled in Westport with her husband, who was a teacher. She had two little girls and seemed very happy. She often asked Roxy to visit her, and once Roxy actually did and spent a pleasant few days with the little family, despite the near-constant rain.

Alexander's wife got pregnant and delivered a healthy baby boy, who took one look at Roxy and began to cry. Claire sent her a look of reproach. Later, Tristan told her that small children often instinctively knew the _fae_ when they saw them.

She held intermittent contact with Tristan and Irvin, most of it friendly chitchat with the odd bit of advice strewn in from their side. Once, Roxy was terribly lovesick after being unceremoniously dumped by a girl she had liked a lot. Tristan suggested a love potion. Irvin, sitting next to him in front of the screen as they skyped, swatted at him.

"Love potions don't work," he said.

"They so do!"

"Only temporarily. And the side-effects are nasty."

"Hey, who's the wizard in this household?"

Irvin shook his head. "It's a bad idea. Go for a swim, Roxy. It'll clear your head."

Roxy smiled a watery smile at both of them.

 

* * *

 

 

When Tristan finally called her with the news, Roxy wasn't ready.

"I've found your family," he said without preamble. "Do you want to know?"

What a question! "Yes."

"They're winter court."

There was a pause that stretched on until it became uncomfortable.

"Is that... bad?" Roxy asked cautiously.

"Depends," Tristan said. "It'll mean that your glamour will be less strong than in someone of the summer court. It also explains why you haven't burst out with magic yet. Winter court magic works differently. It works in slow and subtle ways. It is the long game, not the quick flap of a butterfly's wings."

"The summer and winter courts are equivalent to the _seelie_ and the _unseelie_ , right?" Roxy asked slowly. She really did not like where this was headed. "And aren't the _unseelie_ evil?"

Tristan huffed. "Is the wind evil, for ripping the roof off your house? Is the river evil, for drowning you if you fall in? Is the frost evil for biting your skin? Nonsense. Distinctions of good and evil are a human concept. They do not apply to the _fae_ courts."

"Oh," Roxy said, slightly relieved.

"Nevertheless," Tristan admitted, "the _unseelie_ court is certainly more dangerous to humans that cross their path. Or any other living thing, for that matter."

"And who are my family?" Roxy asked.

"The house of Hawthorn," Tristan said. "They guard one of the entrances to the otherworld. They are a powerful, old house. Years ago, their youngest child, a girl child, was stolen by a vengeful bogie. Being an old house, they have made many enemies over time. The bogie took the child and hid it away, and nobody has found it since. Which might have something to do with the fact that the Hawthorns viciously killed the bogie and strung him up on his own entrails for all the world to see before anyone could think to question him."

Roxy shuddered. "How do I get in touch with them? Can you...?"

Tristan cut her of immediately. "No! I am of the summer court, and not even of noble blood. I could not ask such a thing, not even of my liege lord, if he owed me a favor."

"Well. Then I guess I won't meet them?"

"I suggest finding a hawthorn tree and standing in its shade on the next new moon night, and calling out their name. _If_ you really want to meet them." He sounded dubious.

"I'll think on it," Roxy said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nemesia is a genus of pretty flowers. In German, they are called Elfenspiegel (elf mirror). Probably with good reason...


	4. Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jumping out of a small airplane and learning mid-air that someone among their group had no parachute taught Roxy three things
> 
> 1\. She really, really, REALLY hated flying
> 
> 2\. Merlin was an evil bastard. (No real surprises there)
> 
> 3\. Eggsy was the most awesome friend in the world and she would love him until the end of her life, and bake him chocolate muffins, and be his wingman, and have his back like he had hers.
> 
> Almost falling to your sudden, violent, and very messy death could do that to you.

 

Every child who has ever been disappointed by her family daydreams about being adopted or misplaced at the hospital, or a fairy changeling, at least once. She dreams about finding her true family, who are nice, loving, and warm, and who will care for her like her other parents never did. She dreams about living happily ever after.

Roxy's true family was neither nice, nor loving, nor warm.

They looked at her from unfamiliar eyes, cold eyes. They were tall and proud, and shroud in shadow. They did not smile, and if they did, it was less than pleasant.

Roxy stood under the hawthorn tree on a dark, moonless night, just as Tristan had instructed. She had called out the name of her family three times in English, and spoken it once in her halting Gaelic, like Caitlín had taught her as a child. _Sceach gheal_.

And they came. They stepped out of the shadows, first one, then another, and another. Six fairies, all in all. Shadows danced around their slender forms, but for some reason, she could see their faces quite clearly. Their cold, proud faces. Starlight in their eyes, and shrouds of hawthorn, with both white flowers and red berries set upon their brows, mingling with their hair, so light it could almost be called white.

"Lost child," said the tallest of them, a woman whose face was stern, but achingly lovely, too. Her voice was the soft breath of cold wind that comes into the house on a winter day, before you can shut the door.

"You may call me Aine," the woman let her know, in a tone of voice that implied while this was perhaps one of her many names, it certainly wasn't the only or the most important one.

"This is Adair," a man stepped forward, "eldest among the brothers of your blood."

He was tall and regal, and looked as if he knew to use the sword with the bone-white hilt that hung at his side.

"Here is Edan, this is Lonan." Two other men. "Younger than Adair, but of the same stem. Last is Ailbhe." Ailbhe looked to be the youngest, though it was hard to judge. She, too, carried a sword. Her expression was not particularly friendly.

They were all looking at her, and she saw curiosity in their eyes.

"This is very unexpected," Adair said. "We thought you lost."

"For me as well," Roxy assured him. "Are you really my family?"

Aine nodded. "There are more, but we are closest to you in blood."

"Why have you come?" Ailbhe asked. It sounded hostile.

"I was curious," Roxy admitted. "All my life I thought I was perfectly human, until people started calling me a changeling.

"You are not human," Edan said, and she got the feeling that it was meant to be reassuring.

"But you have lived among humans far too long," said Aine.

"What does that mean?" Roxy asked in alarm. Were they planning to drag her off the otherworld against her will? That had _not_ been part of the plan.

"It means, you reek of human," Ailbhe sneered. "All over. Nobody will want to be near you, sit with you, eat with you."

Aine gave a measured nod. "Ailbhe seeks to injure, but she is right. You are one of us, but at the same time not one of us. If you asked us you take you back to our world, we could not grant it in good spirits. It would cause many problems, and not just because you smell of humans. We did not think you would ever return to us. Ailbhe has taken your place in the fold, and we cannot give you what we have given her, unless you were to challenge her and win. But that would cause much grief and anger."

That explained why Ailbhe was so hostile, then.

"That's all right," Roxy said quickly, "I don't think I'm qualified to become a fairy warrior, or whatever you are."

Ailbhe sniffed and said something in a language that was not Gaelic, or at least not anything that Roxy had ever heard before.

"I'm faring quite well for myself among humans," Roxy assure her kinfolk. "One of them has even taught me to use some magic." There, that was bound to impress them, right?

Adair gave an approving nod. "That is good," he said. "Wizards are not bad company."

He made it sound as if they were one step above the cockroach-level of regular human beings. Roxy had the sinking feeling that he would not approve of her friendship with a half- _fae_ wizard and a _selkie_.

Ailbhe muttered under her breath.

"She says that you are not one of ours, not truly," Edan offered helpfully. "You have become... domesticated? It happens, sometimes, when _fae_ live among humans."

Roxy thought of Tristan's mother, and of Tristan himself.

"Is that a bad thing?" she asked.

"It is... frowned upon," Aine said carefully. "However, in your case, it may not be a bad thing. You are a child of both worlds, but you belong to neither. If you can live among humans quietly, that is good. We cannot bring you back into the fold, but it would not do for you to cause mischief in the human world. It would... reflect badly upon our house." Her expression was dark.

"We would have to hunt you down and kill you," Edan said brightly, and without showing a hint of regret or remorse.

Roxy gulped. "Uh... let's avoid that, shall we?"

Aine's expression brightened. "You are a good child," she said approvingly. "We cannot take you home with us, but we will watch over you, occasionally."

The thought of that promised nightmares for years to come, and it probably showed on her face, because Adair suddenly laughed. It was a sound like breaking ice.

"We will teach you charms and glamour," he said, "not be standing at the foot of your bed."

Roxy relaxed a bit.

"We will also grant one favor," Aine said gravely. "As a gift, freely given. Think carefully on it."

That one, at least, was easy.

"I want you to find Alistair Morton."

 

* * *

 

 

He was at his desk, immersed in a mission-brief Merlin's busy staff of squires had sent him, when a knock on the door interrupted his reading. Dagonet stuck his head in, looking uncommonly hesitant.

Alistair looked up.

"You... have a visitor."

Alistair frowned. "I'm not expecting any visitors. Particularly not here."

"Not here," Dagonet said. "At the shop."

"I'm not expecting any visitors at the shop, either. Who is it?"

"A young lady, who is very adamant about seeing you. Not very tall. Slender. Long blond hair. Ring a bell?" Dagonet looked at him disapprovingly.

Alistair rolled his eyes. "Martin, how long have we been working together? Have you ever known me to be a ladies' man?"

Dagonet made a noncommittal sound. "You can hardly expect me to keep track of all the knights' escapades," he said.

"Well, you have it easy with me, then, because there are none," Alistair said firmly, getting up. "Come now. Let's have a look at this person."

 

* * *

 

 

Roxy stared at Alistair.

Alistair stared at Roxy.

It went on like that for a long, long while, until Dagonet pointedly cleared his throat.

They both began to speak at once.

"What are you doing here?" and "Where have you been?"

"You first," Alistair said.

Roxy eyed him carefully. He looked older, but not particularly different. The suit was nice, it looked good on him. She would have chosen a different tie to go with his eyes, but...

"It's a bit of a long story," she said evasively.

"Likewise," Alistair said. "Come on. Let's have this conversation someplace else."

He handed her her coat and held the door of the shop open for her. Old Alistair had been polite, but he had never treated her like a lady, like a stranger. It felt odd.

In the cab, she asked: "Do you remember what you told me?"

" _I love you, and magic is real_ ," Alistair repeated the words. "Yes, I do."

"Well, I kept my promise. Magic is a bit more real than I'd like it to be at times, but I still love you. Even though I am terribly, terribly angry with you for running away."

The cab driver, who thought that he was witness to the tail end of a lover's quarrel, stared pointedly at the road in front of him. Roxy ignored him. So did Alistair.

"By the way," Roxy said conversationally. "I've found my family. They are not particularly pleasant."

Alistair started at that.

Roxy's eyes narrowed. "You _knew_!" She groaned in exasperation. "Of course you knew! Why did you never tell me?"

"What would I have said?" he asked. "I'm sorry, Roxy, but the people you believe to be your parents really aren't your parents? You are not even one of us? We are not even related at all?"

"You could have said _something_."

Alistair shook his head.

"You also could have mentioned the fact that you were alive. That would have been nice." Roxy glared at him.

Alistair sighed. "Roxy... it's not as easy as that."

"It is! _'Dearest Roxy, I am alive and well. I have not fallen into a deep dark hole and died. Yours truly, Alistair.'_ There. It's that easy. One note, Alistair. One letter, one e-mail even. It's been fourteen years, and I've spent the better part of them looking for you."

He stared at her, incredulous. "You have?"

Roxy snarled. It was inarticulate, but it expressed her feelings very well. "You are such an _incredible idiot_ ," she said with verve. "Yes, of course I have! I love you, and I missed you, and you broke my heart when I was ten years old, and it's never been right since."

Alistair drew in a sharp breath, looking away from her. "I'm so sorry," he muttered under his breath.

"You better be," Roxy said, her anger slowly dissipating, because she was just so glad, so incredibly glad to see him again.

The cab stopped, and Alistair paid the driver. He let her through a small, wrought iron gate, and up a few steps to his house. Ivy climbed the reddish brick, and there was a wreath of holly hung at the door. Roxy had to smile despite herself.

A dog came to greet them, a friendly Irish setter that had passed its best years already, but was still alert as a much younger dog.

"This is Kiwi," Alistair said.

Roxy bent down to pat the dog's head.

Kiwi followed them into the living room, and by the time Alistair returned with the tea tray, she had settled down by Roxy's feet.

"When did you get a dog?" Roxy asked.

"Fourteen years ago," Alistair said absentmindedly, pouring tea. "And it wasn't exactly a choice. I had to pick a dog. Kiwi here seemed friendly, so I took her."

"Alistair," Roxy said slowly, "you are not working as a tailor, are you?"

"I am afraid not."

 

* * *

 

In defense of Alistair, it had to be said that once she asked him, he told her everything. He told her of Gawain, and of how he had been recruited. He told her of Merlin's three questions. He told her of the grueling tests and the training, and the other recruits. He told her of the puppies, and of the dog test. He told her of Tristan, and Roxy stopped him.

"Wait," she said, " you know Tristan?"

Alistair looked puzzled. "He is one of the knights and a very good friend of mine, yes. Why?"

"Are we speaking of the same Tristan? Wizard? Half _fae_? Very pretty? Lives with a _selkie_ who likes to go swimming naked in the Thames in the middle of the night and answers to the name of Irvin?"

"That's certainly him," Alistair said drily. "I didn't know of the swimming naked part, but truthfully, it does not surprise me at all. Only, we call him Bedivere. Irvin is his given name." He looked up at her. "When did you meet those two? That's a strange coincidence."

"It is," Roxy admitted. "Right after I finished school? I had a bit of an existential crisis and ran away to London, and when I was sitting by the river, Irvin came out, stark naked. It was a sight to remember." She grinned at the memory. "We had a somewhat odd conversation afterwards, and he took me to his flat, where Tristan almost proceeded to rip my head off my shoulders, but we all became friends after I swore an oath not to harm them."

"Ah," Alistair said, piecing together parts of the puzzle. "And I suppose Tristan told you of the _fae_ connection."

"He called me a changeling. I was a bit put out with him at first. Turns out, he was right." She shrugged. "As I said, my _fae_ family is not particularly nice, though."

Alistair looked at her worriedly. "Did they harm you?"

"No, they were perfectly polite. They just made it clear that they don't want me." Even through the relief of not being dragged off to the otherworld, it still stung a bit.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. "I suspected there was something like that behind it. That's why I didn't tell you before."

"Wait. You thought they had dumped me on my parents, because they didn't want me?"

Alistair looked uncomfortable.

Roxy shook her head. "It wasn't quite like that. But they definitely don't want me now."

"What do you want?" Alistair asked solemnly.

Roxy spent a long time looking at him.

"Truthfully?" She asked.

He nodded.

"To stay with you, and never let you leave again."

A moment of silence hung between them. Not an uncomfortable silence. An expectant one.

Finally, Alistair moved. The hug was a bit improvised, but she got the idea. Without hesitation, Roxy threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly, her head on his shoulder.

"It will not be simple," Alistair cautioned.

"Is it ever?"

 

* * *

 

Agent Lancelot's death was a tragedy, but it could not have come at a better time.

"Do you want the job?" Alistair asked Roxy over dinner.

"Hell, yes."

He nodded. "Then we'll get you the job."

They both knew the game was rigged. It was not just the candidate's abilities and cunning that got them through the tests, it also depended on whether or not Arthur and Merlin wanted them to get in. Particularly Merlin. Arthur might have thought that he was running the show, but he was not.

So Alistair took her to meet Merlin.

Roxy stared at the wizard, and the wizard stared back, unblinking.

"Fuck me," Roxy said roughly, almost surprised to hear her own voice, "you're the Queen of Fairies."

Merlin _did_ blink at that. And Alistair gave a sharp, dismayed call of: "Roxanne!"

The anecdote made it through the _Kingsman_ grapevine later that day, eliciting chuckles from Harry and Dagonet.

Tristan thought it was the funniest thing he had ever heard and laughed so hard that he actually fell off his chair. When he looked up, Bedivere stood above him, shaking his head to set his dark curls flying. But there was a smile tugging at his lips. He stretched out a hand to help Tristan up.

Merlin, however, was giving Roxy a curious once-over. "Now that," he said, "is an explanation I am well and truly curious for. Have some tea with me."

Alistair was beginning to protest, but Merlin shut him up with a look. "You may stay if you wish. She is your candidate, after all."

"So," Merlin said after tea had arrived - well, tea for Roxy and Alistair, Merlin himself had coffee. "I have been accused of a lot of different things in my time. Some of them were fairly creative. But I have never before been called _the Queen of Fairies_. Considering that you are friends with both Tristan and Bedivere, I don't suppose it's a slight against my sexual orientation. So what is this all about?"

Roxy blushed slightly. "When I was a child, my nanny told me fairy stories," she explained. "She told me the story of Tam Lin, who had been taken by the Queen of Fairies and was rescued because a woman loved him enough to fight for him. When Alistair disappeared without a trace, I was convinced the fairies had taken him. I searched for them far and wide, but I never found them. I even tried to lure them in with flowers, and with bread, and milk, and honey."

To her surprise, Merlin smiled at that. "You must have been a very headstrong child," he commented. "Did you ever find them?"

Roxy nodded. "Yes, but not in the way I expected to find them. And it turned out that they hadn't taken Alistair at all. You had him all this time." There was _some_ reproach in her voice, because while she had almost forgiven Alistair by now, she hadn't quite forgiven all of _Kingsman._

"I see," Merlin said. He looked at Alistair. "You never said a word."

Alistair shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable. "Well, given your well-known aversion to the _fae.._."

Merlin rolled his eyes at him, leaning back. "Alistair," he said with a sigh, "you have to stop listening to Tristan. The fact that I don't want to bed a fairy doesn't mean I'm against the entire race on principle. Though I suppose Tristan never quite forgave me for that."

Roxy stared. "Wait, what?"

Alistair was looking pointedly at his cup, his cheeks flushed. Merlin in turn looked quite at ease. He bit into a piece of lemon cake and chewed thoughtfully, before responding.

"Tristan is half _fae_ , as you probably know. I was a bit hesitant to take him on as a knight, particularly given the fact that he is also a wizard. The _fae_ are known for mischief, and he's caused enough so far. Though I'll admit it has gotten better since Bedivere joined our ranks. Tristan took my caution as a dismissal of his abilities. Doubly so, when I also turned down his offer of sex. But I would like to think that we have both moved past that by now."

"Can you tell that I'm _fae_?" Roxy asked curiously. So far, only Alistair and Irvin had been able to do that, and she somehow doubted that she smelled of honeysuckle to Merlin.

"Yes, I can. Though I'll admit it's not easy. A lesser wizard might not be able to tell. Your glamour is very strong, particularly for a member of the winter court." He gave her an appreciative nod. "That will work in your favor."

"So you're not against me taking the test?"

"Absolutely not," Merlin said. "In fact, I think you would be an asset to _Kingsman_. Your magic is strong, as are your other abilities, you are clever and quick, and your personal connection to three other _Kingsman_ knights will make things run a lot smoother. James - the previous Lancelot - was not universally well liked, to put it mildly."

"He was an arrogant prick," Alistair muttered.

"Quite."

"You approve, then," Roxy said.

Merlin shrugged. "You still have to pass the tests. But if you did... then yes, I would approve."

 

* * *

 

Roxy met the other candidates and was not impressed. The boys were all idiots, particularly the triumvirate made up of Charlie, Digby, and Rufus. Amelia seemed all right, but she was a bit stiff.

Things only lightened up when Merlin brought in the last minute candidate, who looked as if someone had snagged him off the street while he was minding his own business, bundled him up, and abducted him to the _Kingsman_ Manor.

Roxy watched him, and made a decision. She could use an ally in this game, and he seemed like the most likely candidate. He was unpretentious and didn't seem like much of a threat.

So she held out a hand.

He took it.

Neither of them realized that as the beginning of a lifelong friendship, but they both felt better in the knowledge that somebody had their back.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Roxy learned that Eggsy had lost his father, and by extension also his mother, to _Kingsman_. Michelle Unwin apparently hadn't coped well with the loss of her husband. She learned that he had a half-sister he adored, a sentiment that Roxy, having never been close to her brothers, could only marvel at. She learned that he worshiped the man who had brought him into this.

They were not supposed to talk about their sponsors. But...

"Harry - he's just bloody amazing. What he did there at the pub?" Eggsy shook his head.

Roxy smiled slightly. His unquestioning hero-worship was oddly sweet. It was a form of love she understood, because it came close to what she felt for Alistair.

"I hope that whatever happens in the trials, you'll be able to stay in touch with him," she said sincerely.

Eggsy gave a brief shrug. "I've got no idea what will happen. I'm lost." He grinned and picked up the tiny pug sleeping on his bed. "But whatever happens, I'll walk away from this with a bunch of new experiences and a puppy."

Roxy was pretty convinced that she would be the one to win a seat at the table, which naturally meant that Eggsy would have to walk away sooner or later, but she felt sudden regret at the idea. "We should stay in touch as well," she said, "no matter what happens."

Eggsy beamed at her.

 

* * *

 

Unasked, Merlin signed her up for extracurricular magic lessons. While the other recruits got to relax after a hard day's work, she got to stay behind to study some more. At first, she was less than pleased with the idea.

It lasted up to the point where she walked into the assigned room and found Tristan standing amidst a swirl of fluorescent butterflies.

Roxy gave a gleeful shout.

The butterflies spread apart, fluttering to all corners of the room.

"Ah," Tristan said, "my favorite _unseelie_ changeling, is it? Merlin must be getting mellow with age. I remember the fuss he kicked up about me, but now he's letting the Night folk in." He tipped his imaginary hat to her in a mock salute. "Well done, love."

Roxy wrapped him in a brief hug, darting away before Tristan had even a chance to get handsy. She grinned broadly at him. "I missed your useless advice, and phone calls at two in the morning."

"That's Bedivere. I never call you past midnight, and my advice is always good."

"Nah," Roxy shook her head. "You always call me when you're drunk. No idea why. And since you have the alcohol tolerance of a four-year old, that's fairly often."

Tristan pouted. "Vicious rumors and lies. That's what your kin is known for." A butterfly settled onto his nose, and he sneezed and whisked it away.

"What's with the butterflies?" Roxy asked.

"Ah!" Tristan's face lit up. "There's your first lesson. I'm of the Summer Court, yes? That's what our magic does. It creates ridiculous, beautiful things. Or ridiculously beautiful things. Or beautifully ridiculous things. It's the light touch, a summer breeze, the smell of flowers, a lover's kiss. _Your_ magic is different. It is the glimmer of starlight on snow in a moonless night. It is the song of a blade, whipping through the air, deadly sharp. It is the bitter pain of frost, and the knowledge that all things must end."

He looked at her expectantly.

"Poetry isn't really my thing," Roxy admitted. "But that was beautiful. And in more practical terms?"

"My magic creates, yours destroys," Tristan said bluntly.

"Oh, wonderful. Do tell me more." Roxy sighed and rolled her eyes.

"It doesn't have to be a bad thing. All things must come to an end. Every flower must wither. You cannot have life without death, or creation without destruction. And winter doesn't only destroy, does it? It also preserves. It covers the roots and bulbs of plants with snow, to protect them until spring. It gives the world some time to rest, to sleep and dream. Frost cleans out all sorts of vermin, and only if old things die, new things can grow in their place."

"Are you going to teach me how to make snow?" Roxy asked dubiously.

Tristan shook his head and grinned. "I'm going to teach you how to protect those you love. And clean out the vermin in the process."

"That's more like it," Roxy said with some relief.

"Right," Tristan said. He caught a butterfly and carefully held it in his cupped hands. "Do you know that people who freeze to death usually fall asleep first? Their body tries to preserve energy to keep up vital functions, and at a certain point, everything grows very slow. It's quite peaceful, actually. Except for, you know, the freezing to death part."

He looked up at her. "You can use that. Some of your magic is like ice. You can freeze somebody to death, but you can also put them to sleep with it. Try it. Catch a butterfly. Bonus points if you don't turn it into a butterfly-shaped icicle."

So they practiced. During the first half hour, Roxy killed two butterflies outright and produced quite a few butterfly-shaped icicles. But then she managed to catch one, and hold in her cold hands, and stop the frantic batting of its wings without killing it.

"Bravo," Tristan said, inspecting the unmoving insect.

"Will it work on humans too?" Roxy asked. "They are much larger."

"Size doesn't matter in this," Tristan said. "A life is a life, and the life energy of a butterfly is not so much different from that of a rabbit, or a human. It just uses it up more quickly. But I am not letting you test this on anyone before I can be sure that you won't accidentally freeze them to death."

Roxy nodded. That _did_ sound sensible, yes. However... "Is Merlin okay with you teaching me how to potentially kill somebody with magic?"

"Since Merlin is teaching all of you how to definitely kill someone with a gun, a knife, or your bare hands, why would he have a problem with deadly magic?" Tristan asked sarcastically.

"I don't know, I just figured it was somewhat more immoral? Black magic and all that?"

"I am not teaching you to summon demons an raise the dead. Magic is a weapon to Merlin. One of many in his arsenal. He has no moral qualms about using it, if it is for the right reasons. Arthur does, obviously... but then, if you bed down with a wizard..."

Roxy frowned. "What? Ugh. Really?"

Tristan looked at her, confused. Then he blanched. "Oh my...! No, that was a figure of speech! No, just no." He pulled a disgusted face. "Really, Roxy, to even assume such a thing."

"Hey! Merlin is a reasonably attractive man. And everyone knows _you_ have the hots for him, including Merlin himself."

"That's beside the point," Tristan said, but she noted that he didn't deny it. "And I was thinking more of Arthur, who's definitely not attractive in any sense of the word. Right..." He looked about. "More butterflies?"

 

* * *

 

Jumping out of a small airplane and learning mid-air that someone among their group had no parachute taught Roxy three things:

1\. She really, really, REALLY hated flying

2\. Merlin was an evil bastard. (No real surprises there)

3\. Eggsy was the most awesome friend in the world and she would love him until the end of her life, and bake him chocolate muffins, and be his wingman, and have his back like he had hers.

Almost falling to your sudden, violent, and very messy death could do that to you.

 

* * *

 

Inside the Manor, Alistair had just slapped Merlin hard in the face. "Are you completely _insane_?!"

Startled, Merlin raised a hand to his burning cheek. Alistair had large, strong hands, and a lot of practice at hand-to-hand combat with Harry _, Kingsman's_ current expert on the subject.

On the screen, Roxy and Eggsy rolled around on the lawn a bit, not really moving all that much, because they were still stunned from hitting the ground. Both of them were panting heavily and looked rather pale.

As a sort of weird displacement activity, Merlin started to look for his coffee mug. Engaging in a fistfight with Percival was a pretty bad idea, he told himself emphatically. Some things simply weren't worth the pain they eventually brought you. However, the mug was gone... ah. On the floor. And Alistair stood right inside a puddle of coffee.

"You said nobody was supposed to die during the trials!" Alistair looked as if Merlin had just shot his favorite puppy. Which, admittedly, wasn't too far from the truth. Merlin had not shot the puppy himself, but he had once held out a gun to Alistair and told him to shoot it.

And now he had almost killed the only living being Alistair loved more than that stupid dog.

Great. _Way to build trust and friendly relations with your agents, Merlin_ , Harry's dry voice commented in his head.

"They both had a parachute," Merlin said numbly, "no idea why the boy didn't open his."

"Because you told them that one of them didn't have one?" Alistair suggested acidly. "And he would have believed you, naturally, given the fact that you and Harry already got his father killed before he even had a chance to become a knight."

Ouch. That one hurt, especially since it was true.

Alistair leaned in. He wasn't all that intimidating, but Merlin knew true anger when it stared him in the face. "You _will not_ kill my girl, Merlin." There was a conspicuous lack of _or else_ in that statement. Probably, because Alistair thought it went without saying. Merlin was suddenly reminded of Pellinore and his nine year streak of bad luck, courtesy of Tristan. The knights were truly terrifying when they avenged those they loved.

"Not planning on it," he said earnestly.

Alistair nodded stiffly and withdrew.

Merlin got up to greet his recruits on the lawn.

 

* * *

 

Watching the recruits on their honeypot mission - there always was one at some point during the trials - had become a bit of a spectator sport over the years.

Arthur and Merlin, of course, could claim that they were merely watching in a professional capacity, because well, it just happened to be part of their job (right...). Arthur doubly so, since Charlie also happened to be his candidate.

Likewise, Percival and Galahad claimed they had a legitimate reason, wanting to see how Roxy and Eggsy performed.

Tristan, Bedivere, and Gawain had no such excuse. Which did nothing to keep them from watching, of course. Gawain brought popcorn. Bedivere, exhibiting more class than that, brought a couple of bottles of a very nice Merlot, and cheese. Tristan squeezed himself between Bedivere and Merlin, stole a piece of cheese, and made a happy purring sound.

Watching the recruits was very entertaining. Watching Harry watch the recruits and groan at their abysmal technique, even more so. "How do any of them _ever_ get laid?" he asked with helpless frustration.

"Not at all, in the case of yours, I'd wager," Gawain said, chewing.

"Hey, don't be like that, he's cute," Tristan said. "In that adorably helpless puppy sort of way?"

Bedivere sent him a sideways look, accompanied by a soft sigh. "Tristan, _no_. We're not adopting any puppies. And this one is Harry's."

"I didn't say... what did I say?" Tristan pouted. "You people always think the worst of me!"

"Because we know you," Merlin said.

"Alistair," Harry asked with interest, "do you think Roxy would actually have gone ahead and slept with the mark? I mean, she's a woman."

"That's never stopped her before," Tristan interjected.

Both Harry and Alistair turned to look at him, vaguely incredulous.

Tristan rolled his eyes at him. "Come on. You, Harry, do not have the moral high ground in this, given that your own tastes run wide and varied. And you, Al, really, there's no reason to be jealous. There are a few things a girl can't discuss with her... well, I don't even know what you are to her. _Uncle_ sounds a bit dirty."

"Bedivere, will you please slap him for me?" Alistair asked.

Bedivere reached over and pulled Tristan into a one-armed hug. "Behave."

On screen, the recruits had just realized that they had been tricked. Not a moment later, they were drooling on the table.

"I hate that part," Gawain groused. "Feels like a betrayal of trust."

"That's the point," Merlin said. "Well, gentlemen, we have a train test to attend."

"I'd rather not watch that part," Tristan said with a shudder, hiding his face in Bedivere's shirt.

"Wimp," Harry said good-naturedly, patting Tristan on the shoulder as he left the room following Arthur, Merlin and Alistair.

 

* * *

 

Of course, Roxy and Eggsy passed the train test with flying colors.

Love is a much better motivator than ambition.

Merlin gave them both the customary twenty-four hours with their mentors. To the mentors, he gave a look that said: _I do not need to remind you of the rules, do I? Do not talk about the tests. Do not make any promises. And for God's sake, do not sleep with the recruits._

Not that he was particularly worried in Percival's case. He wouldn't have put it past Roxy to try and seduce her mentor, but given that Percival had endured prolonged exposure to Tristan and never caved, and failed miserably at three honeypot assignments before Arthur had declared him unfit for that sort of mission; there probably wasn't much to be stirred up.

Harry worried him.

But then - when did Harry ever not worry him?

True to Merlin's predictions, Alistair and Roxy went home, cooked a very large pot of pasta and in the process almost demolished Alistair's kitchen, ate too much and drank too much wine with dinner, tried a charm for doing the dishes that failed miserably and broke half of them, laughed at the mishap, retreated to the living room, watched old James Bond movies, and fell asleep curled up on the sofa.

They did not talk about the dog test, because Alistair had already told Roxy about it months ago.

Harry and Eggsy, on the other hand, first discussed Harry's career and decorating choices, then mixed up a number of increasingly more palatable martinis, got a little tipsy in the process and proceeded to play poker, because ostensibly, that was a game every _Kingsman_ knight should master.

Well.

Maybe not strip-poker.

Merlin groaned and hid his face in his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first - there probably will be a sequel. Some time after I get back from Australia, if the local monsters don't get me. I was planning on getting this done in about 20.000 words, but it has developed a life of its own. I'm also thinking of doing a companion piece on Tristan and Bedivere, because they are somewhat adorable. What do you think, would you be interested in reading that?
> 
> Also, a word on James. It has always bugged me that so many people in this fandom assume that he was a nice guy. Okay, so maybe he was, but all the evidence from the movie suggests that he was also an arrogant prick. (You can be both, I have a colleague who does it rather spectacularly, unfortunately without looking half as good in a suit)  
> Hence the comment that he wasn't universally well liked.
> 
> And lastly, in case anyone was wondering; Alistair-Percival is the asexual character in this story. If you don't know what that means, go look it up: http://www.asexuality.org/home/?q=overview.html


End file.
